Demo First

Here is a quick demo of using terraformls and tflint Language Server with the latest Neovim’s native LSP support.


Vim8 -> Neovim

I have recently switched from using Vim8 with Conquer of Completion for LSP configuration to the latest Neovim v0.6.1 in favour of the native LSP support, which means we can install any Language Server and a bunch of code completions and language features are just a <Tab> away.

Built in Language Server Configurations in nvim-lspconfig - server configurations

Another killer feature which made me switch is that Neovim has an embedded Lua 5.1 runtime which is used to create faster and more powerful plugins and provides beautiful Syntax highlighting with Tree-sitter parsing library.

Configuring Neovim for Terraform auto completions and tflint

I spend alot of time building large scale AWS infrastrcure using Terraform and integrating the tf language server and tflint boosts my productivity 10x.

Steps to configure terraformls and tflint with Neovim LSP

  1. Install terraformls Installation link
  2. Install tflint Installation link

Make sure the installation of these tools are in your $PATH

  1. Install vim-terraform plugin to enforce terraform fmt on file save Installation Link

Once you have the nvim-cmp and lspconfig setup Reference Link , Add the following to your init.lua file for Neovim to recognize the hcl and terraform filetype

vim.cmd([[silent! autocmd! filetypedetect BufRead,BufNewFile *.tf]])
vim.cmd([[autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile *.hcl set filetype=hcl]])
vim.cmd([[autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile .terraformrc,terraform.rc set filetype=hcl]])
vim.cmd([[autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile *.tf,*.tfvars set filetype=terraform]])
vim.cmd([[autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile *.tfstate,*.tfstate.backup set filetype=json]])

Add the following to automatically format *.tf and *.tfvars files with terraform fmt on save and align settings.

vim.cmd([[let g:terraform_fmt_on_save=1]])
vim.cmd([[let g:terraform_align=1]])

I use the following keymaps to quickly call the Terraform commmands in Normal mode.

keymap("n", "<leader>ti", ":!terraform init<CR>", opts)
keymap("n", "<leader>tv", ":!terraform validate<CR>", opts)
keymap("n", "<leader>tp", ":!terraform plan<CR>", opts)
keymap("n", "<leader>taa", ":!terraform apply -auto-approve<CR>", opts)

Call the terraformls and tflint PID to attach as client to the Neovim LSP

Reference Links to enable the language servers

require'lspconfig'.terraformls.setup{}
require'lspconfig'.tflint.setup{}

Tree-sitter grammar for HCL language

I would highly recommend installation of HCL grammar for beautiful highlighting of all the *.tf and hcl files.

Run :TSInstall hcl as long as you have installed and configured the Tree-sitter plugin - link

Verify the config

In your Terfaform templates git repository , open any *.tf file and run :LspInfo and a pop-up will appear with the configured language servers.

My Neovim Config

Feel free to take to peek at my .dotfiles